The Nation: The Capo Who Went Public

JOE COLOMBO’S civic career is a recent development. Until he organized the Italian-American Civil Rights League, he was a much more private person, intent on following his father’s profession. Anthony Colombo was a successful Brooklyn mobster until he was garroted one night in 1938 in the back seat of his car along with his girl friend. The killing forced young Joe to quit high school and go to work in a printing plant to support his mother and younger sister. He enlisted in the Coast Guard in World War II, but he got into so much trouble that he was treated for psychoneurosis in a hospital and given a medical discharge. He collected a disability allowance of $11.50 a month.

∙

Returning to Brooklyn, Colombo drifted into a life of petty crime under the shadow of the Mafia. By Mafioso standards, Colombo was not much of a success. He failed to compile the kind of record that would mark him for bigger things. For a while he served as a muscleman on the piers; later he organized rigged dice games. He was given a promotion of sorts when he was appointed to a five-man assassination squad under the direction of Mafia Boss Joe Profaci. Also on the team were the Gallo brothers: Larry and Crazy Joe.

According to police, the group performed efficiently, disposing of some 15 troublesome victims until in 1959 they were ordered to murder one of their own gang. They obeyed their instructions, but afterward they thought it over. If Profaci could eliminate one of them, what about the rest? The Gallos committed the unthinkable: they rebelled against their Mafia boss. Not only that, they kidnaped five Profaci henchmen, holding them captive until the boss agreed to give them a bigger piece of the action. The solemn agreement lasted until the hostages were released. Then a fierce three-year gang war broke out. Before it was over, nine mobsters had been killed. 15 were wounded and three disappeared.

Remaining loyal to Profaci but keeping as quiet as possible, Colombo escaped from the wars unscathed—but only just. On July 4, 1963, the Gallos planned to ambush him on his way home from the country club where he regularly played golf. Somehow, he got word and took another route.

Eventually, Colombo engineered a truce between the warring Mafia factions. At the same time he added to his power in another way. Two of the Mafia bosses, Joe Bonanno and Joe Magliocco, decided to let a contract for the extinction of three of their rivals: Carlo Gambino and Thomas Lucchese of New York City, and Slefano Magaddino of Buffalo. Who should be picked for the job but enterprising Joe

Colombo? In this case, however, Joe thought the victims would be worth more to him than the contract. So he tipped them off. Bonanno made his hasty, celebrated disappearance and the “Bananas War” got under way. Some seven mobsters were slain, but once again Colombo escaped with profit.

∙

In 1963 he was given command of the Profaci family. At 40 he was the youngest of the Mafia chieftains. Until then, his virtue had been his caution. Except for law-enforcement agencies, hardly anyone knew who he was. Though he had been arrested a dozen times on minor charges, he had been convicted only three times. He was fined twice for gambling, and he was jailed for 30 days in 1966 because he refused to tell a grand jury what he knew about mob infiltration of legitimate business. His bigger operations were largely untouched by the law or publicity: gambling in Brooklyn and Nassau County, loan-sharking in Manhattan, hijacking at Kennedy Airport.

He lives inconspicuously: the Mala equivalent of the man in the gray flannel suit. A conservative if stylish dresser, he looks the part of the conventional real estate salesman that he claims to be. His split-level home in Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife, his two unmarried sons and a daughter, is scarcely distinguishable from other houses in the neighborhood. Hidden away in Orange County, N.Y., is a more appropriate setting for a Mafia boss: an extensive estate, complete with tennis courts, a swimming pool and a horseracing track. Colombo is also a skillful handball player and shoots golf in the middle 80s.

Colombo has been able to account for an income of about $18,000 a year through real estate dealings; associates report that he rarely has any difficulty collecting his commissions. On a Dick Cavett television show, Colombo explained that he also owns a piece of a florist shop and of a funeral home. When the studio audience laughed at the mortuary connection, Colombo bridled. He was not trying to be funny, he said, and he did not find the matter at all amusing.

When U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell stepped up the war on organized crime, Colombo lost his cool. He became angered when the FBI trailed him, questioned his friends and family and arrested Joseph Jr. (he was later acquitted). In that anger the Italian-American Civil Rights League was born.

If Colombo survives, he will face not only the continued wrath of his colleagues in crime but a one-to-21-year jail sentence for perjury. When he applied for a real estate broker’s license, he was indiscreet enough to try to disguise his criminal record. In addition he is under indictment for larceny and conspiracy in a $750,000 diamond robbery on Long Island, and he will soon go on trial for tax evasion. Lawmen may no longer proclaim that they are going after the “Mafia” thanks to Colombo’s efforts, but they are intent on pursuing at least one Mafioso more zealously than ever.